On Purpose
by My Barbaric YAWP
Summary: Nothing they've ever done together has been on purpose. Well, not since they stopped trying to hurt each other anyway. A deep look at Nick and Adalind moving toward something almost...intentional throughout seasons 5 and 6.


A/N: This one shot hopefully helps to offset the delay with The Long Way Home. If you've ever watched the last two seasons by just scrolling through for Nick and Adalind screen time, this one is for you. It's been two years in the making for me, and I'm so glad to finally be able to share it. Let me know what you think!

* * *

He's standing at the door to her hospital room, pressing his hands flat against the frame and taking deep breaths. There's a moment here that's slipping away from him. A transition period between who he was—a Grimm, a cop, and a pretty challenging boyfriend, even at the best of times—and who he will be when he steps through that door. A father. A protector. And in some way he can't even begin to understand, a partner to the woman who's been his nemesis as long as he's been a Grimm.

It's been the worst 48 hours of his life. He's lost his mom and Juliette and Trubel and Diana, again, and still he's about to have a family of his own with someone he hasn't even seen in about nine months.

He wonders what his mother would say. Aunt Marie would laugh and tell him he was an idiot, but he thinks his mother would be quietly tickled to meet her grandson. She even liked Adalind, back in the day. Maybe she would approve. Maybe...

He can almost picture another life in another world entirely. One where he struck up a conversation with a beautiful, Armani wearing blonde in the sun outside of an expensive coffee shop and a nice jewelry store five years ago. Maybe they would have liked each other then-before the threats and the keys and the Royals. Maybe they would have hit it off and given up their preexisting lives and made a go of it. And maybe—after one thing lead to another—maybe his mother would have settled down in Portland to babysit for her grandson on a regular basis.

But now it's just him. And Adalind.

He walks through the door, and it hits him. They're stuck together now. Irrevocably.

But she's glowing—golden hair and golden cheeks, somehow sunlit, even under the hospital's fluorescent lights—gazing down at their son with so much love that it makes his head spin. Whatever else Adalind is—and the woman contains multitudes—she's a loving mother, too. Thank god for that.

* * *

It's strange to take them back to the place he lived an entire life with a whole other woman. On the drive home, he thinks about Juliette. About how he never got around to proposing. There was always some crisis, and then one day he looked up, and they weren't the same people who fell in love with each other at all.

And then she was a hexenbiest.

He thinks about her woge and shutters. He'd never wanted to see her like that. Maybe he just hadn't wanted to see her at all. Maybe he'd never really been ready for her to be more than the convenient girlfriend waiting for him at home. More complicated, more haunted, more powerful.

He glances towards Adalind, who's staring out the window when she's not anxiously checking on Kelly in the rearview mirror. He thinks about her woge, and strangely, it doesn't really bother him. Of course, she's not his lover, and her powers are currently suppressed, but even still...that's just who she is. She's a hexenbiest, and she's a powerful, complicated woman. And at this point, that's the least problematic part of their relationship.

"If you need anything, just call," he says, heading for the front door before turning around with a belated thought.

"You do have my number, right?" he asks, blushing a little, because they have a child together, and he's been calling Bud instead of her for the last few weeks. He honestly doesn't know if she even has a cellphone.

She chews her bite of sandwich with no tomatoes and swallows. "I don't know. I mean, we must have called each other in the last five years, but not like...socially?"

They stare at each other, and then she starts to laugh quietly, and he starts, too. Before he knows it, he's sliding down the wall, laughing so hard he's stomach hurts.

"How the hell did we get here?" He asks the question between deep breaths, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes, and still chuckling a little on the exhale.

Adalind hiccups softly around her giggles, dabbing at her eyes with the paper towel and smiling at him—all dimples and humor and good will. He hasn't seen her smile like that...ever.

"Who knows?" she says, finally, "I stopped keeping score when I realized I was pregnant again. Anyway, text me so I have your number."

She calls out numbers and he puts them in. His phone autofills a contact.

"You are in my phone. Contact name: 'The Witch.'"

"Well, that's better than expected.".

He texts her, and she snorts, lips pulling into a reluctant smirk. "You're here, too."

"Contact name?"

"Grimm, comma, Asshole."

"Wow."

"Mmmmm," she says around another bite of sandwich. "I'm going to change it to Baby Daddy."

"But how will you know which one?"

"Damn, you're right!" She's laughing again. "Help me come up with something funny then. Grimm Daddy?"

He grins at her, feeling the chill that seeped into his bones when he found his mother's decapitated head starting to thaw slightly.

"That's going to get some looks when it comes up in public."

She snorts again. "Yeah, I'm going to need a really stern photo to go with it. Give me your best interrogation face, Burkhardt."

He tries—he really does—but the photo comes out a little too warm to be really Grimm. There's something about his eyes—something soft and amused and directed at her that he's pretty sure has never been a part of his interrogation style before. Not with her, anyway.

* * *

He keeps thinking about the first time he saw her. She was golden then, too, drenched in sunlight that made her hair shine like a damn beacon, and then she woged and changed his life forever.

She tells him that he was her first Grimm, too, and it's sort of funny that they both started this journey together from opposite sides.

"I thought you were cute," she says in the car, giving him a small smile. It doesn't feel flirtatious, just comfortable. "The first time I saw you—before the dead eyes thing. You were so young."

"We both were. If we only knew then…"

"I'd have told Sean to take a hike. But he did give me Diana, and that's worth the rest of it." She's quiet then, and it's a mournful silence. He looks at Kelly's carseat in the mirror and wonders what he would do if someone took his child away from him. In retrospect, he's lucky to be alive.

Just as he's thinking about apologizing—for all the good it might do—she breaks the silence.

"I guess I have to thank you, too," she says. "For Diana, I mean."

He glances at her in confusion, and she shrugs. "I never would have thought about having kids if I hadn't lost my powers. Never really planned to be a mother, but here we are. Again."

Nick thinks of her in the hospital, looking down at Kelly with the kind of bottomless love he's rarely seen in real life. "You're kind of a natural," he tells her.

Adalind sighs and looks in the mirror again. "I just want to get it right this time. At least he's not levitating anything yet."

"He doesn't have dead eyes yet, either."

"Yep," she says, smiling at him now. "We did good, Nick."

* * *

What the loft lacks in aesthetic value, it makes up for in terms of security. He's almost surprised how easily Adalind adapts to the bleak surroundings, but then he remembers that she's always been a pragmatist at heart.

He mentions this in passing, and she shrugs, like she hasn't really thought about it. She does that a lot.

"I grew up in a beautiful house where the atmosphere was frigid at the best of times and downright hateful at the worst," she tells him. "I'll take this place over that any day of the week."

There are still details to be figured out, of course. She's there when he comes home from helping Hank, and he may never get used to that. She asks him about his day before they both stop and stare at each other. This is new and raw, and neither of them are prepared to play house, but it's too late to turn back now.

In bed later, they still stare at each other from opposite pillows.

"This is so weird," she says—a whisper over Kelly's soft breathing in the crib nearby.

"Do you want me to go?"

"No, that's what's weird. Before this, I didn't even like sleeping with people I was, you know, sleeping with..."

"Yeah, I get it. I've only just started getting used to sleeping alone. It's weird to be back to sharing."

"Is it okay? I can deal if you need your space."

Nick looks at her and can't quite imagine where else he's supposed to be.

"I'm good. Get some sleep, Adalind."

* * *

Kelly starts to fuss in the early hours. Nick's up immediately, reaching for his gun before realizing it's just a hungry baby. Adalind is buried under the covers, just the hint of silver hair in the moonlight poking out. He goes to Kelly and carries him back to the bed, sitting against the headboard while he reaches over to pat her head awkwardly.

She moans a little and shifts around.

"Sorry. We've got a hungry kid over here."

"Breast pump," she mummers into the pillow.

"First thing tomorrow," he promises, pulling the covers down to her shoulders and doing his best to comfort Kelly while she stretches and sits up next to him.

"Okay, baby, come here," she says on a yawn, and he leans in to pass their son over in the dark. It's intimate in a way he's never really experienced, and when she fumbles with her top, he looks away sharply.

She hardly notices, gasping a little as Kelly latches on. Nick braves a look back, and she's stroking Kelly cheeks while they puff out and suck in with a rhythm that's older than recorded time.

She glances up then and gives him a wry look. "I feel like a buffet."

"I feel pretty useless."

"You brought him to the bed so I didn't have to."

"That's a start. Do you want some water?"

"Sure. See, you're invaluable."

* * *

"I sleep a lot better knowing that you'll kill whatever walks through that door," she says, asking him to join her again in the same bed a couple days later.

That should be weird, but what he's really stuck on is how comfortable she is with the idea of him killing any threats. He can't help but think of all the fights he had with Juliette, who was never really comfortable with the violence until the moment when she was way too comfortable with the violence.

It feels disloyal, but it's also nice to share space with someone who completely understands his responsibilities, possibly even better than he does.

Later in bed, he watches her in the moonlight. She's peaceful, and he thinks she must be asleep until she says, "Nick, it's kind of hard to rest when you've got those dead eyes trained on me."

"Sorry," he says, looking away.

"It's fine, but I'm not going anywhere. I'm not doing anything, and we both have to be up in a few hours when the baby decides it's breakfast time."

"I know."

She sighs. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Nick…"

There's an exhaustion in her voice that has nothing to do with the late hour. He turns to her again and meets her eyes.

"I was just thinking that you actually know the Grimm part of my life better than anyone."

She smiles then, soft and drowsy. "Mmmm. And you've seen my hexenbiest self in her full glory more than most."

"It's kind of...nice?"

"It is. I guess there's not much to hide anymore. We've both done the worst things to each other already."

"We've hit rock bottom."

"Right. The only way forward is up."

* * *

The next day, he discovers that the woman doesn't own any clothes. He stares at the empty drawers and thinks about the stylish lawyer he met years ago, struck again by how much she's changed in the time he's known her.

He hands her a random shirt from his stash and immediately regrets not grabbing a pair of sweatpants when she walks out with bare legs under his white shirt.

She's so small, but her legs just go on forever, and it's enough to have him rushing into the bathroom just to get out of the line of sight. But then there's a bra hanging on the back of the door, and he takes a cold shower while trying to forget that the mother of his child is wandering around the loft in his shirt and no bra.

Is she even wearing underwear? No. Do not go there.

By the time he's done in the bathroom, she's found a pair of his sweatpants for herself, but she's still baring skin while she examines her abdominal stitches in the kitchen.

"Oh shit, are you okay?" He's rushing towards her, hair still damp and t-shirt sticking to his back. She looks up, startled, before frowning back at her stomach.

"I'm fine. Just, you know, healing, slowly. I don't want to take any healing potions while I'm breastfeeding, though, so I think it's going to need to be online shopping for a while. I don't want to pull a stitch in a dressing room. Do we even get deliveries here?"

"PO box. I'll get you the address. I'm sorry, I should have thought."

She gives him a reassuring smile. "You've had a lot on your plate. I just need some time to get back to full strength."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Nick, you're doing more than enough."

* * *

The next few days are pure madness. Trubel's in the hospital, and Adalind's worried about him, and somehow she knows Meisner, the asshole he's been waiting on since Chavez died.

"I trust him," Adalind says, and Nick is pretty sure that the number of people she trusts is vanishingly small these days. When did he make the list? When did she make his?

Meisner's incredible in a fight, and Nick is starting to wonder if he should be jealous. Not that he has a right to be jealous or even anything to be jealous about.

"Tell me about Meisner," he says later, once Trubel is safe in the bed that Adalind prepared at the loft.

Adalind opens her mouth to answer and shuts it again.

"I need to know, Adalind. Who is he?"

Adalind sighs and heads to the kitchen, putting the kettle on for tea. "He was in Europe with me the first time. Part of the resistance. You might want to ask Sean. They also knew each other."

"We try to be selective about when we bring in the Captain," Nick says, taking a seat at the counter and still staring at her.

"That's a good policy."

"So, what was he to you?"

"Meisner? He was a friend, when I didn't have any." She's gathering tea bags and mugs and spoons—avoiding his eyes all the way.

"Adalind…"

She looks up at him then with a sad smile. "He delivered Diana, Nick."

"Oh."

"Yeah. He witnessed a part of my life that I will never be able to share with anyone else, and I trusted him with my life and my child's. I don't take that lightly. And he brought me to your mother. We would have died there without his help."

"I'm sorry."

"For what? I wasn't a nice person then. I've never been a nice person, Nick. I'm a bitch and that works for me. But Meisner—" She looks away, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve. "He was the first person who thought I could be more for Diana, and I will always be grateful for that."

Without thinking, Nick moves around the counter, reaching for her, and she comes into his arms without resistance, resting her forehead on his chest, while he strokes her golden hair slowly. The kettle starts to whistle, and he reaches behind him to turn off the burner.

"Forget the tea, Adalind," he says, whispering now into her hair. "Come to bed."

* * *

Twenty five hours later, he's dismayed to realize the sight of Trubel in his shirt has no effect on him whatsoever. They feed her nachos and pizza, and he can't help but feel a sort of brotherly affection as she scarfs it down and tries to keep up with their questions.

Paternity leave—such as it was—is over now. He holds Kelly close and kisses his chubby cheeks before passing him back to Adalind. There's a moment when they're both in his arms, Kelly curling into her breast while Adalind leans into his chest. Nick breathes deep and restrains himself from kissing the crown of her head just in time. He turns away swiftly, trying not to catch Trubel's all too perceptive eyes.

It's strange to leave the two of them behind. Trubel and Adalind with time to burn? It doesn't bear thinking about. He wonders if the loft will still be standing when he gets back.

But when the day is finally over, that's the least of his problems. Juliette is back and no one has any answers. She's alive, and she's dangerous, and if someone is out there turning hexenbiests into weapons, he's sitting on a powder keg.

"You don't leave the loft," he tells Adalind in a quiet moment between talking to Meisner and getting called out by Hank. "You don't go out on the roof, you don't open the windows. I don't even want you in the garage. You stay here and you keep yourself safe. We don't know what Hadrian's Wall is really capable of, and I'll kill them all before they get their hands on you."

He's never taken this tone with her before. Since they started living together, he's tried to treat her like a roommate—a roommate with whom he shares a bed and a baby, but, still, he's tried to sound polite and restrained with her and not like a Grimm giving orders to protect his girlfriend.

Girlfriend?

Adalind must see all of this flicker behind his eyes, because she doesn't immediately tell him where to shove his paternalistic tone. She's staring up at him with big blue, quicksilver eyes and he stares right back until their foreheads almost press together.

"Nick, I don't have any powers right now. Even when I did, Juliette's are supercharged compared to mine. No one wants me for a weapon. Not this time."

"I want you," he says, and they both look surprised. "You're my secret weapon. You're defending the castle and Kelly and I'm going to keep Trubel here to help because you're too important to risk. Please don't leave the loft, Adalind."

"I won't," she says. "I'm not going anywhere."

* * *

"Juliette being back does not change the way I feel about Kelly or you," he tells her later. It's her turn to spiral, and she's been working up to it all night. It's funny how he knows this now. He knows how she simmers under pressure, especially now that she can't resolve things with a spell. She knows he'll protect her and Kelly at any cost, but without her powers she's vulnerable, and neither of them are particularly good at that.

"Are you sure?" She asks, and he doesn't even take a breath before he has the answer.

"I'm sure."

They both look to Kelly then. He's gurgling in his crib, blithely unaware of the dangers a Grimm and a suppressed hexenbiest face in their crazy world.

"Well that's good," she says bumping his shoulder with her own, starting to smile a little, working up to that teasing smirk of hers that sends hot and cold chills up his spine. "Because you're really stuck with us now."

He lets out a deep sigh and reaches for her, pulling her into his chest, resting his chin against her head. It feels good. They should do this more.

"That's the plan," he says, whispering into her hair.

* * *

Trubel runs off in the middle of the night, and it puts them both on edge. They're running out of ways to talk each other down, and somewhere in the middle of coffee and more worrying and apologizing to each other for their past for the umpteenth time, Adalind kisses him.

Or maybe he kisses her? It really doesn't matter, because they're leaning across the table and Nick has no idea how they got here, from five years of fighting to these slow, careful kisses that shake him to his core. Her lips are soft and warm and smiling, and he's smiling a little, too, and leaning in and—

The last time they kissed as themselves…well, they'd been enemies. She'd bit him on instinct because he'd kissed her desperately—too hard and too fast—against her will on the forest floor, changing both of their lives forever.

He's extra gentle with her now. He remembers her crying in the woods, looking so broken.

"I'm nothing," she'd said then, after losing her powers, and he'd stared at her, dazed and speechless, because he knew even then she would never be nothing to him.

He wonders if he should have known then. That she'd be everything to him, eventually. Hopefully.

"Thinking about it's a lot safer," he tells her, after the kiss ends, and they're both still leaning into each other at the table. She doesn't think there's anything safe about them, but she lets him stall. As if they have time to figure this out later. As if there will ever be a day when they aren't in crisis mode, and they can figure out their feelings for each other then.

But they're always in crisis mode, and soon enough he has to go meet his weaponized ex. Adalind gives him that look—her raised eyebrow, don't-get-killed-you-idiot look—and he sends one right back. They're communicating with their eyes now—like an old married couple—and Nick would wonder when that happened if he wasn't so busy being thankful that it did.

* * *

To say things get back to normal after meeting Eve and kissing Adalind would be a stretch. There is no normal in the loft, but there is a routine of sorts. His work schedule has always been erratic, but she's up with Kelly at all sorts of hours, too. Sometimes their down time overlaps, and she cooks or they cook together, and she tells him about Kelly, and he tells her about his day, and they pretend it's all normal. For them, it kind of is.

Tonight they're getting ready for bed together for a change, and he's telling her about the ritual sacrifices they keep finding outside the city. She knows all about it, and others besides, and he can't help but stare at her like she's a walking, talking Grimm book.

"How do you know these things?" he asks, and she gives him that little smirk that drives him crazy. Like she knows everything, including how lucky he is to have her on his side.

"Homeschooling," she says and goes to feed Kelly while he thinks about living with a woman who could destroy him or his enemies at will if she wanted to when her powers return. That should probably give him a little more trepidation than it does. He's almost looking forward to it. Almost.

He thinks about the last time she helped him with a case. When his mother had been murdered, and Diana had been kidnapped, and even without her powers Adalind had gone into battle like it was prenatal yoga. He remembers her delivering a severed head for him and then putting on that scream queen performance with a sparkle in her eyes. Like it was fun. Like she knew she was good at it.

And she is. Good at it. She's never disturbed by his work or by the wesen world they live in. It's a real relief to come home to someone who understands—who's seen it all and killed her fair share of wesen, and who will join him in battle at the drop of a hat, eight months pregnant or not. She's fierce, and he really loves that about her, even when it scares him a little.

* * *

She never asks when he'll be home, but he's started to tell her anyway. He calls when a case starts to run late, just to give her a heads up that she's on her own for bath time and to hear her coo at Kelly on the other end of the line.

"I miss you two," he tells her one night, on impulse, and Hank looks up from the body with a raised eyebrow and wide eyes.

"We miss you, too," she says, and he starts to breathe again as she speaks to Kelly in his ear. "We miss Dada don't we? Don't we? Yes, we do. Yes, we do."

"I thought you didn't want to do baby talk," he says, grinning now and imagining her glaring at him across the city.

"It's not baby talk, Nick," she says, all stern, and then to Kelly: "Is it, baby? Is it?"

There's quiet then while he tries not to let her hear him laugh, and he assumes she's rolling her eyes at him.

"Fine," she says, "but he is my baby."

"He's a lucky guy," he says, laughing, and then softer, almost to himself: "We both are."

There's a soft inhale on the other end, and when she speaks, he can hear a smile. "Come home soon, Nick."

* * *

Leaving her alone for long stretches has some unexpected consequences. She's got a lot of energy and can-do attitude, and as she gets a better grip on Kelly's schedule and what she affectionately calls "housewifing"—laundry, cleaning, cooking, and keeping their little homestead in order—she tries to keep busy by making more work for herself. And him.

"A little to the left. A little more. A little—stop! Right there. Don't move!"

Nick rolls his eyes while she hops up on the bed beside him, jostling him a little when she goes up on tip toe to mark the upper edge of the picture frame. He holds it steady while her hip presses against his shoulder for balance, and he wonders when sharing a baby and a fortress with her became...this. Decorating and adding personal touches and building a home together.

Later, when the picture is up and he's feeding Kelly at the counter, she comes out of the bedroom in an outfit he's never seen before—a large creamy sweater and tight pants that hug everything—and she stands a little awkwardly on the steps with her hands outstretched.

"Does this look all right?"

He blinks because she's beautiful, and he's amazed she has to ask.

"Yeah. Do you like it?"

She twists a little, looking down at herself. "Yeah. It's comfy, and it's never been puked on, and I wouldn't hate being seen by other adults in it."

"That's good," he says, lost in this conversation now with no clue what she's looking for from him.

"Yeah," she says, and then sighs. "I used to have a lot of beautiful clothes, you know? There was a lecture in law school. They said looking the part was half the battle, and I took that to heart, I guess. I could rock a shift dress and heels, Nick."

He swallows. Nods. He remembers her in the sunshine before the woge.

"I felt like a stone-cold bitch in those clothes. And that had its downsides, don't get me wrong, but sometimes—I miss it? Feeling like I was in control and kicking ass in the courtroom and out of it. I miss being a bitch, sometimes. Not to you, obviously, but like—as a lifestyle..."

He smiles at her. He can't help it. She's too cute and also too scary to ever tell that she's cute.

He sets down Kelly's bottle and bring him up to burp, patting his back slowly while he walks over to her. With her on the step, their eyes are almost level, and he reaches out to pull her down, into his arms.

"If it helps, you'll always be the head bitch in charge to me, Adalind," he tells her, kissing her hair. She giggles then, like maybe he's said the right thing tonight, and he holds her and their son and thanks whatever power there is out there running the world that he gets to have this for now.

* * *

He's really not sure which of them came up with the idea to have a dinner party in the loft, but it's happening now, and Adalind is baking cookies. He wonders what Hank and Wu will think.

Up on the roof with Monroe, he's not even sure what he thinks. It's true that Adalind has changed a lot and for the better, but the more he comes to know her, the more he thinks she hasn't changed at all. This is who she was—before Renard and the Royals turned her into a weapon, before her mother twisted her childhood into a horror story. She's always loved like this—all in, no holds barred, no prisoners taken. And she loves Kelly, that's for certain. And maybe even…

"But dude, seriously, it is so weird that you slept with both of them when they were each other," Monroe says, and Nick's thoughts immediately derail. "I mean, come on, relationships are confusing enough as it is without that kind of—you know—bizarre arithmetic."

He has no idea, Nick thinks. Nick's spent hours in bed with Adalind in the past few months—trying not to watch her sleep—trying not to think about her face above him, moving her body like Juliette. Trying not to think about the way that was some of the best sex he and Juliette ever had.

But that's not the worst of it. Not even close. When he really wants to torture himself, he thinks about the afternoon they made Kelly. About the heat and the fire there between them. About that thing she does with her tongue that just about gave him a heart attack. He should have known then, he thinks. Her moves were nothing like Juliette's and if he's honest, that's what had excited him. That's why he'd been too blissed out of his mind with desire and heat and need to notice that the woman he was making love to wasn't Juliette at all.

And that's the bizarre part. Because it had felt like making love—even then, when Adalind had every reason to hate him. It had felt like love.

Back at dinner, he starts the toast, but he finishes it with Adalind. It feels good to thank their friends for rolling with the changes in their lives. It feels even better to realize that his friends are hers, too, now. Even without sex—and he's man enough now to admit that's the only part of this relationship they're holding out on—she is his partner and everyone at this table knows it. It feels good.

* * *

She's quiet the next night, and when she tells him about her mother's birthday, he tries not to think about his mother, who killed her. And died protecting her granddaughter. Their family is complicated, but he's happy to be able to surprise her by remembering her birthday.

"I guess you did arrest me once," she says, sending him that teasing smile. As if he hadn't pulled all of the precinct's records on her the moment she walked back into his life. He can't remember when he put her birthday on his mental calendar. Maybe after they moved to the loft? After they survived six straight sleepless nights and didn't threaten to kill each other or leave each other alone with the baby torturer. He can remember her one morning at the end of that sleepless period, nodding off over her coffee—hair wild and covered in spit up—and realizing then that he was in this with her for the long haul, come what may.

He tells her his birthday—because he doesn't want her to break into the precinct records to find out—and he's looking forward to a quiet night at home with her when his phone rings, as usual.

It's Monroe, who needs him to come meet his uncle, and it's a long night and day from there. When he finally makes it home, he has to tell her about the trip. He wants to trust her with this, but the thing about living with a hexenbiest—suppressed or not—is that it's kind of scary when you have to tell her that you're about to do something even more dangerous than usual.

He knows he's in trouble the moment he does. She's not pleased, and when he brings up Aunt Marie—

They both pause, then, thinking about the night Adalind tried to kill his aunt and drugged him instead. If you'd told him then he'd be working with Adalind—living with Adalind—parenting with Adalind...

He can hear Marie chuckling in his ear. When he refocuses on Adalind, she looks resigned, and when he tells her he's leaving tomorrow, she presses her lips together—upset and a little broken—before she turns and heads to the bedroom without him. It's almost scarier than her woge.

He feels like a bad partner then, but when he charges after her to reassure her and to try to make her understand, she's already one step ahead of him. As usual.

"I know I can't stop you from going. It's something you have to do." She's looking up at him now—tired and pale and still somehow the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. "But I also know there's a chance that you won't come back—"

"Adalind—"

He's already reaching for her, but she steps back. Holds his gaze. Steps forward again.

"And I can't let you go without you knowing how I feel about you."

And he does know. Before she even kisses him, before she undoes his shirt collar, before she even says the words—he knows.

"I love you."

And it's too late to turn back now—to pause and wonder if he loves her, too—because he's already removing his shirt and reaching for the buttons on hers, pulling it open and off, and reaching for her bare, creamy skin—desperate to have her in his arms.

It's even better than he remembers. The way she moves, the pleasure on her expressive face, the way she gasps under his hands and lips and—

It's gentler this time. He's careful of the scar on her belly where their son entered the world and the weight of her breasts—tender and full even now when she's just fed Kelly. He wants to keep her safe, but she arches up under him, giving as good as she gets, meeting him for every thrust, smiling at him like she's never going to stop.

"Please—Nick," she says against his ear—licking his ear—and the answer is yes. Yes. Yes to everything. Yes to her.

When they come together, it's a revelation. They're both wrecked after, sprawled against each other and panting like they just moved the world. Which they did. He felt it.

"We should definitely do that more," she says between gasps while trying to get her breath back. "That should be a thing that we do."

"Yeah," he says on a pant, looking up at the ceiling and seeing stars instead. "Yeah."

And then he looks her—mussed and glowing—grinning at him like the hexenbiest who's got the Grimm, and he reaches for her again. He can't help it.

"Now, right? We should do it more now?"

"Yes," she says on another gasp, pulling him in, and then there's nothing else to say. Not tonight.

* * *

Waking up with Adalind in his arms throws him for a loop. It's not like they haven't been sharing a bed since they moved to the loft, but something about holding her naked body against his chest—bare and vulnerable and somehow his—makes his stomach twist and turn. He can't help thinking of all the times they've fought each other. All the times she's hurt the people he cares about, and all the times he's hurt her. There's a history of violence here between them, and it ends now.

They're quiet with each other all morning—tip toeing around the loft while Trubel's on her way over—and it's a relief to head out to the precinct and feel like he can breath out loud again.

Eventually, he has to return to pack, and the hush is still there, hanging over them when she watches him go with tears in her eyes, lips tight with worry. He doesn't know how to fix this for her right now—doesn't know what to say to make it better. She's never had a problem with his Grimm work before, so this is uncharted territory. All he can do is hold her close and hope.

* * *

The quiet lasts with him until they get to Germany. Monroe has a way of breaking through the tension. He always does.

"My family hunted here for, like, hundreds of years," Monroe says fondly, and Nick snaps out of his funk immediately.

"And when you say hunted, you mean—" Nick gives him the Grimm eyes, and Monroe freezes and tries to brush him off. It's almost funny. Nick spends the rest of the drive to the village wondering how he ended up with such dangerous wesen as his nearest and dearest in this world: Monroe, Rosalee, Adalind—

But then Monroe starts ranting about eyeglasses, and he remembers how. Monroe is the best. And so are Rosalee and—

"I slept with Adalind." He says it like he's ripping off a band aid, and Monroe is stunned.

"What?"

"I just thought I should tell you."

"Okay...I mean it's not like you haven't slept with her before, but this time you like, actually knew it was her, so that probably made it different. I mean did it?"

There's a moment when Nick can't even answer, and when he does, he doesn't even know what he's saying. Was it different? It was phenomenal. Like the last two times—the best sex of his life to date, but without the guilt and with the—

"She's changed so much," he says, almost to himself, and what he means is that she's changed sides. She's in his corner now—on his team and—

"Oh yeah, she has. I just hope she stays that way."

Nick's heart skips a beat, and his stomach flips over. He really hasn't thought about that. He knows her powers will be back eventually, but he hasn't even considered the possibility that her loyalty might change once she doesn't need him for protection. She told him she loved him, but once she's fully operational and can fight her own battles, will she even need him anymore?

"Do you think you're in love with her?" Monroe asks, and Nick just stares ahead.

"I don't know."

* * *

Everything after that escalates quickly. They find the box that the Grimm crusaders buried, and Monroe gets hurt, and they can't seem to care about that now because the box is everything. Monroe checks in with Rosalee on the way home, and he gets to talk to Adalind for one brief, awkward moment, but it doesn't matter because he can't stop thinking about the box.

Which is a problem, because Monroe almost dies, and the stick in the box saves him, and Nick decides no one can know. Not even Adalind.

He gets home and has to lie to her to cover up their discovery, and he realizes it's the first time he's done that since Kelly was born. It feels odd, and it doesn't sit well, and he thinks she can tell.

Except she's got her own worries tonight. She wants to know how he would feel if her powers were to return. When they return.

He wishes they didn't have to talk about this. He knows they'll have to figure it out, but his worries are different than hers. She worries he'll leave or try to kill her once she's a hexenbiest again—and those are good worries. They make sense.

He worries she won't want him or need him anymore—and those are a bit harder. He can't help wondering why he wants his romantic partner to need him so much. Does she have to be defenseless to need him?

And then there's an even worse thought:

Was that what went wrong with Juliette?

Not the hexenbiest, per se, but the new power that meant she didn't need him to protect her for the first time in their relationship. That thought is the real kicker.

"Let's just go to bed," Adalind says, and they do. It's nothing like the night before he left, and he just hopes he's not screwing this up already.

* * *

There's no one moment he can point to, but Adalind is harder to reach than ever now. She's pulling away from him, and he's letting her—he's pulling away himself—and it feels…

Awful.

The only bright point is Kelly, and every once in a while their eyes meet over his head, and Nick feels a brief moment of relief. She loves him—he can feel it—and if they can just get over this…

She wants him to find Diana, and honestly, he can't believe that it's taken her this long to ask. He also can't believe he hasn't been working on it already. They're missing Kelly's big sister, and she's got powers, and he's been so wrapped up in figuring out how to be a dad to Kelly and a partner to Adalind while keeping the stick and Portland safe that he didn't even stop to think too much about how Adalind would feel about Diana being missing again.

But there's nothing to go on, and he doesn't want to go to HW with this. Diana's family now, and HW isn't. He trusts them about as much as he trusts Renard, which is to say not at all and losing ground every day. He's always been his own faction here in Portland, and it's no different now.

Anyway, he should stay on the Diana search, but he keeps getting pulled in a hundred directions by Eve. She's been going undercover as Renard, and if that wasn't confusing enough, she slept with the Captain's campaign manager. He's starting to wonder if anyone has ever used that spell for anything other than really confusing sex—and then she drops the bomb:

Adalind's hexenbiest might be back.

And it is back, according to Rosalee, and isn't that great?

"She broke every finger on his hand without even touching him," Rosalee tells him, and she almost looks impressed.

He is. It's a hell of a defense mechanism and for one beautiful, clear second, he is so happy that she's safe, that she protected Kelly and Rosalee, that Tony will regret messing with his family every time he tries to open a door knob for the rest of his life.

And then the moment passes. Because she hasn't told him, and she must be so scared. He thinks about the last time the woman he lived with became a hexenbiest. He thinks about Juliette's woge and shudders. He handled that so poorly, and then there was Adalind. The hexenbiest you know and the baby you never knew you wanted. It's been so good between them for months, and he can't let her down now. At least now he knows why she's been distant since he returned from Germany. He can wait a little longer. He can wait for her to tell him.

And then she goes back to work at Evil Incorporated, and he doesn't quite know what to think. She's always been a lawyer—he knows that, right? But she's never been a lawyer while living with him, and it might be even scarier than the fact that she's a hexenbiest again. He's a Grimm; he can handle a hexenbiest, but a lawyer…

Cops aren't really known for trusting them.

And what will happen if he has to bust one of her clients—as a Grimm or a cop? He can't think of a bigger conflict of interest than that. And what if there's a company Christmas party? It's going to be Monroe and Rosalee's wedding all over again.

How did this happen? He thinks of her in that sweater months ago—soft and comfortable and warm—and how he told her she'd always be the bitch in charge to him. And she is. It's just that since Kelly's been born she's also been a stay-at-home mom, and that was really working for him. He's known where she was most of the time: at home, where he left her. Where she belongs.

Except of course that's not sustainable. Not for her. And of course she deserves to have a career if she wants. She should be able to leave the house without him knowing everywhere she goes and everyone she talks to. Of course—that's normal and healthy and—

It scares the crap out of him.

But he's an adult, and he can get over this. He can be the man she needs him to be. The man strong enough to trust her with his life and Kelly's—even if she is a hexenbiest and a lawyer and everything he's programmed to hate. He can't hate her now, and he can't say no to her when she reaches for him in their living room and leads him to the bedroom.

"This is not stopping here."

She pushes him toward the bed and he sinks down on the end while she shimmies a little to get out of her leggings. It's cute—the way she wiggles her butt and then wiggles her eyebrows at him and steps forward to straddle him on the edge of the bed. She's already reaching for his shirt, and it's a bit of a tussle to figure out who gets to touch whose bare chest first. Her hands are quicker, but his mouth is already one step ahead, and she gasps when he nips at her breast, dragging her hips down to meet his.

She has no underwear on, and he has one moment to remember she's a genius before he's reaching for her warmth, feeling the slick between her legs, curling his fingers inside to find that one spot—

She screams then, and it's the best thing he's heard since she said she loved him. He makes her do it again and again and then he's on his back and further up the bed so quick, he thinks it must have been magic.

This hexenbiest thing could have it's perks.

But there's no time to think about that because she's on him, working at his belt, grinning down at him like she's got him exactly where she wants him.

And she does. She holds him down and guides him inside of her with one hand on his dick and one hand on his stomach. Then she starts to move, and he realizes—distantly—that she's been holding back until now. In all the times they've been together so far she's been playful or tender or even a little wicked in the best possible way, but not powerful. Not like this.

She's not holding back now, and the fact that she's a hexenbiest again just makes it hotter. She drives him on every downward thrust—harder and faster and deeper—and he almost wouldn't care if she woged and snapped his neck like a praying mantis right now, so long as she keeps squeezing him like that—twisting her hips like that—moaning with a low, long gasp to the ceiling like that.

He reaches for her and brings his shoulders off the bed to hold her closer. The angle changes and her breath hitches. He's got a hand in her hair, and he's focused on her eyes—drinking her in, all of her—the woman and the hexenbiest and the lawyer—all of these things that he should hate and really, really doesn't.

"Come for me, Adalind." His voice is dark and low, and she shudders with it. He's got a hand on her hip, but he's moving it now, searching for—

There. She shakes for him, and he feels it. All that power under her skin, coiled and focused on him. All for him.

And then she bites his shoulder, and he comes, blind. His vision whites out, and all he can feel is her—in his head, in his heart, and in his arms, coming hard.

Some time later, they wake up. Maybe they come back to life—who knows. At least one of them has a history of that.

"I think you broke me," Nick says, and he can feel her giggle against his side.

"We'll have to keep that secret close," she says, yawning and stretching and then curling back up in his arms. "We can't have anyone knowing your weakness is mindblowing hexenbiest sex. I'd have to beat them off you with a scythe."

"Mmmm," he says, holding her close, stroking her back, and smelling her hair. "Why do you smell like coconut?"

"Product." She's whispering now, and her breath tickles his neck. "Makes it all, you know, shiny."

"Oh," he says, on the edge of sleep and fading fast. "I always thought that was witchcraft."

* * *

The next night is just as good, and he's starting to feel better about her keeping her returned powers quiet. If the sex is fueled by the secrets between them, maybe that's a price he's willing to pay.

She's worried though, and, later, when she tells him about Renard reaching out to her about Diana, he can feel the dread creeping back in. As long as Diana is out there in the world and not here in Adalind's sight, she's a risk. He trusts Adalind more and more, but anyone who has Diana has leverage over her that he can't compete with. He's seen what she will do for Diana. He's been what she will do for Diana. Now more than ever, he needs to keep an eye out for anyone who wants to use her against him.

But he reckons without Adalind, because she keeps surprising him. Keeps opening up and trusting him with more and more of herself. It's almost a relief when she finally calls the cell phone to her hand in the middle of the night and it flies across the room. It feels like one more wall between them is coming down.

"I would never hurt you," she tells him, and he believes her. He holds her close and strokes her hair, hoping that they're both right.

* * *

They're not.

She's gone, and she's taken Kelly, and for one terrible second, he wants to kill her for the first time in a very long time. Then it passes. He'd rather kill Renard, anyway.

It's a long day after that. Monroe and Rosalee talk him out of the frontal assault, and when Monroe brings up the possibility of a custody suit, his mind reels. Going to court? With Adalind?

Fucking lawyers.

He's only holding on by a thread, and that thread is his trust that Adalind does love him. Of all the things. Hearing Trubel confirm it with a shrug and a smug, "Wasn't hard to tell," just makes him feel like an idiot.

What's he been doing all this time? Keeping his distance? Playing it cool? Adalind told him she loved him before Germany, and ever since he's been holding her at arm's length. So much so that she couldn't even tell him that she needed help. All this time spent worrying that she wouldn't need him once she had her powers back, only to drop the ball when she did.

He wants his son, and that's all he's been vocalizing since she left, but when he sees her and what must be a grown up Diana on that stage with Renard, it puts it all into perspective. He wants his family back—Adalind and Kelly and Diana, who's his now, too, somehow. He wants them with an ache that turns to anger almost immediately. Not at Adalind, but at the men who scared her into leaving. He knows she loves him, he saw that when she looked at him with those big scared eyes and trusted him with the secret of her returned powers, not knowing what came next.

He hadn't quite known what to think when Rosalee told him—or when Adalind did—but right now he's grateful that her powers are back because she's in the middle of a lion's den, and the kids are going to need all the protection they can get. He almost feels badly for Renard. Almost. And then she's in his arms on the stage on the screen, and Nick just prays she gives the Captain hell.

The only high point of the day after the election is seeing Tony's hand and knowing a little of what Adalind is capable of when she's threatened.

"What happened to your hand?" Wu asks.

"Tripped," says Tony, and Nick can't help but smirk.

"Over a hexenbiest?" he asks. "Pretty, blonde, about this tall? I bet you were feeling pretty tough at the time."

That's his girl. A pretty, blonde hexenbiest who can break as many bones as necessary to protect herself and the people she cares about. He has to hang on to that every time he thinks about her and Kelly.

The low point of the day is the massacre at Hadrian's Wall.

It's really, really low.

* * *

Everything that happens after that is a fucking nightmare that he'd like to forget. Meeting Diana as an astral projection would be kind of cool if it wasn't also creepy as hell and paired with a dire warning. Somehow, they all get out of it alive. It's a literal miracle.

He can't get to Adalind fast enough once she calls for him. It's crazy how the moment he sees her, it's all gone. All the doubt, all the fear, all the worry that he wouldn't be enough for her, that she'd be too much for him—

It's all gone once she's in his arms again. He guesses that dying and coming back again will do that for you. He kisses her like this might be the last time and just hopes it won't be.

Hank calls with more bad news. Renard's always been a slippery bastard, and now he's ready to make Nick the scapegoat for everything.

"If he hurts you, I will kill him," Adalind tells him, and he knows it's true. He can feel it in his gut. Her raw power is threatening to leak out and snap Renard's neck like a popsicle stick halfway across the city. He's never been more attracted to her.

And to think how long they spent worrying about her suppressant wearing off. If he'd known then how much she loves him or how much he wants her—any way he can have her—it would have saved a lot of time.

There's not enough time now, either. She reaches for him, and he's there, cradling her head, reaching for her hip, bringing her so close to him that he might as well be inside of her.

It aches. This last gap between them is unbearable, and when she reaches for his buckle, there isn't a threat in the world that could deter him.

He has her up against the pretentious arch to the bedroom's dressing room in moments. His hands are full of grey silk, and her legs are wrapped around his back so quickly, he almost laughs.

"Did you miss me?" His voice is deep against the shell of her ear, and she shivers.

"So, so much."

"What are you even wearing?" he asks, one hand finally making its way under the copious amounts of liquid silk she's swimming in and finding what must be matching pajama shorts underneath. "Are you attached to these at all, or…?"

She blinks, and the shorts are gone.

"Fuck, that's hot," he tells her, and she moans, undoes his fly with her mind, and he's there with her, thrusting inside, heady with the sense of her and her power and her love all directed at him for one glorious, blinding moment.

They don't last long. They know each other now, and they've been on a knife's edge since the night she left. Their release is swift and acute. He can feel his breath give out when she comes, dragging him over the precipice with her with her nails in his shoulder and her mouth pressed to his in one long, searing kiss.

"Breathe, Nick," she says, a whisper in his ear as he reacclimates to their surroundings. Black Claw's mansion, right. He's going on the lamb again, okay. He's going to miss her like hell when he goes.

Well, that's a given.

"I need you to stay safe," he tells her, zipping his fly, fastening his belt, and reaching for her again. "You need to keep yourself and the kids out of harm's way. I need you all in one piece at the end of this."

"Right back at you, Detective." She kisses him, quick and thorough, and then she pushes him away toward the door. He turns to go, and she pulls him back again. This woman—she's got him coming and going.

"You know the Spartan thing?" she asks. "The 'come back with your shield or on it' whole deal?"

"Yeah?" He's as confused as ever now.

She grins—that cat who's got the cream grin that he adores with everything he has.

"I don't give a damn about the shield," she says. "Just come back."

* * *

That turns out to be a good thing, because he's so far beyond the badge and shield right now he can't see a way back. Not in any of the ways he usually takes. He prefers to work within the system. He believes in the law and doing what's right, and now all of those paths are closed to him. He's a fugitive, and Renard knows all his moves. He's got the city and the precinct and the press—

But he doesn't have Adalind. Not in any way that matters.

She's Nick's secret weapon, and when he calls her for some dark magic and blackmail, she's ready to help.

"Where should I meet you?" she asks, and he pauses. Considers. The line might not be secure, and he's feeling romantic and warm and just a little mushy.

"Where you first told me you loved me," he says, and he thinks he can hear her quirk of a smile across the line.

They don't have a lot of time at the loft before Renard arrives, but they spend it confirming that the kids are okay and then making out in the bedroom like teenagers.

He gets a lot of satisfaction from telling Renard that she didn't turn him down. And when she woges to execute the trust-me-knot, he just watches her with a small smile. Her hair is silver in woge and he loves it. Her face is desiccated and corpse-like, but he doesn't hate it. It's just another part of her. His hexenbiest. The mother of his child. The love he's been lucky enough to find and hopefully will be lucky enough to keep.

And he knows then. With or without her powers, she hasn't changed at all. She's always been a witch with a heart—single minded and loyal to a fault. Fierce in a fight and ready to take on the world for the people she cares about.

It's just now she cares about better people. And he's one of them.

She bites her hand to seal the knot with her blood, and he winces for her. She barely registers the pain. She's so tough, and she's so good at this. Loving a witch and loving a lawyer—they're not so different. They're both hell at contract negotiations. Remind him not to bother with a prenup.

_Prenup?_

Later.

It's over quickly enough, and then they have to get across town to the spice shop. He sneaks a kiss or two on the way out of the loft. Every second with her counts, and he doesn't want to waste them.

When he gets to the shop, the gang's in the basement, and then there's Diana. Other than the projection, it's the first time he's seen her in person in a year, and he's amazed by how quickly she's grown. She's a little girl now, but she can see more than any of the adults in the room. That makes her special. And a little scary.

Just like her mother, then.

When Trubel asks him to leave town with her, he doesn't even consider it. He looks at Adalind, and she looks at him, and he knows he's done running. She is where he wants to be.

* * *

It kills him to send her back to that house with Renard for the night, but with the deal off he doesn't have a choice. At least she and the kids will have a little stability in their lives while he figures this out. And who better to keep an eye on Renard? She's made a career out of being the best known rogue agent in the wesen world—why not use that to their advantage for once?

"You love Adalind," Eve tells him later in the tunnel under the loft. It's a complete non sequitur, and he's thrown. Is it that obvious? He doesn't even know when he fell in love with Adalind, but every time he catches a flash of another man's diamond on her finger he wants to break something and not just because it's cursed.

But that's a problem for another day, and frankly, so is Eve. Or Juliette. Or whoever she turns out to be without her military programming and her government oversight committee.

But his future problems keep colliding, because then he has to tell Adalind that Eve is going to do the look-a-like spell on him, and for a moment he feels like he's cheating on his hexenbiest. Going to another witch for a spell just doesn't feel right.

Adalind barely registers surprise. She's just as practical as ever, cutting to the heart of the matter and jumping to offer him the hair he needs to make the whole plan work. She's his rogue agent in Renard's operation, and she's exactly where he needs her to be.

The rest of the night only gets stranger. Nick's no slouch in the physical department, but Renard has muscles he's never seen before, and they all feel wrong and weird and wrong, and worst of all—he's a zauberbiest. Just a casual half-zauberbiest, trying to stop his carbon copy from installing a fascist regime in Portland.

No pressure, then.

Fighting Renard is easier than being Renard. He's never been one for public speaking, and if his senses haven't gone completely haywire, he thinks Eve is into him like this, which is worrying at best.

But still, it's just his luck that the one time he finally gets to have a knock down, drag out fight with Renard, they're both too evenly matched for it to be a real contest. They can beat each other up all night—neither of them is going to win this one.

When they finally get to negotiations, it's surprisingly simple. They reset the truce. They make peace with co-parenting Diana. Adalind will go home with Nick.

Renard rolls his eyes. "Eh, take her," he says, and that's great. That's everything Nick wants.

Except he's kind of pissed on her behalf. She loved this man once. She killed for him, and he threw her away. She had his child, and he abandoned her in a forest. She deserves better, and Nick might not be it, but he's certainly going to try.

* * *

Back at the shop, he finds Adalind at work on the spell reversal, and it's the most reassuring thing he's seen all day. Unfortunately, even she can't find the solution.

Then Monroe's conspiracy brain kicks in, and he has to prove his identity with the location of his first kiss with Adalind. He looks to Eve. It's still so weird to be with Adalind in front of her. There's a reason people don't stay friends with their exes, and it's precisely so they don't have to do this.

"At the table in my loft," he tells Adalind, and then he remembers the other one. The one Eve really doesn't want to know about. "Or at the Bremen Ruins, where I took your powers."

Adalind snorts. "That was not a kiss."

He doesn't contradict her—even though it had felt like one to him, at the time.

He wants to hold her, but she has no interest in touching Renard, which is exactly what he's looking for in a partner at the moment. Still, it could be an issue, especially as he was looking forward to learning how to share a bed with her all over again, starting tonight.

And then Diana saves the day. A touch violently, but still. Thank god for the witchy women in his life. He's also going to have to get her on his side as quickly as possible because he's never felt power of that magnitude from a hexenbiest before, and he's lived with enough of them now to know that should be a worry.

And then Diana tells Rosalee that she's pregnant with more than one baby, and he has a premonition of sorts. Raising her is going to be a real hoot.

At the loft, she doubles down, staring at the floor where Bonepart died with a little frown of concentration.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

"A lot of people died here," she tells him. Like he's the crazy one, and he guesses he is. Adalind does not look thrilled, but Diana just shrugs and asks for her dad, which is as normal as she gets, so it'll have to do. He watches Adalind hold her close—Adalind's chin just barely clearing Diana's head—and it strikes him again that he's cost her too much time with her daughter. How she's ever forgiven him, much less fallen in love with him, he'll never know.

He can hold Adalind and Kelly now though, and it's simply the best. They move around the freshly furnished loft, finding their old paths around the place while they get the kids ready for bed and the new dishes put away. He owes Bud one for sorting out the basic comforts and a few welcome stuffed animals for Diana. The loft has never been luxurious, but the shoot out really did a number on the crockery and soft furnishings.

Later, it feels like old times to unwind a little with Adalind at the kitchen island. Diana falls asleep surprisingly well for a superpowered seven year old. He's done the math, and he knows she should be in preschool, but she looks and talks like an older child, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

"She knew Rosalee was gonna have a kid? She could sense that people died here?"

"She has amazing abilities," Adalind tells him, and there's no arguing with that. "We have to protect her."

He knows. He's always known. Ever since his mom showed up on his doorstep with Adalind and a baby—the greatest hope coupled with the worst fear. Diana is a miracle and a curse. They have to keep her safe, and they have to keep the world safe from her, too.

"I am so happy to be back here with you," Adalind says, and he's glad for the change of subject.

"Yeah, me too. I thought I was going to go crazy without you."

He's holding her hand now, and it's all he's wanted for weeks. Their son's in the crib in the next room, and Diana's safe and sleeping within sight, and Adalind is here—right in front of him—pulling him in for a kiss across their kitchen counter like she never left.

* * *

A few nights later, they send Diana to Renard's and find themselves alone in the loft without hostile company expected for the first time since she left.

The sex is good, if a little tame by their standards, but it's nice not to rush and to hold each other close afterwards. When they sleep, he dreams of dying in the kitchen and wakes up sharply. Adalind is beside him—quiet and close—and Kelly is sleeping soundly. He gets up for water and checks the tunnel, jumping a little when he turns back and finds Adalind right there behind him.

"It must be strange being back here after everything that happened," she says, and he freezes for a second because that's one hell of an understatement. Although—

"It's a lot better than when I came back and found you and Kelly gone."

"You know I never would have—"

"I know."

And he does. He knows she would never have left him of her own accord. He knows he never could have fought the way he had to if she hadn't taken Kelly with her. She'd made the right choice—painful as it was. Painful as it still is.

"Let's go back to bed," he says, taking her arm to lead her there.

She stops again at the step to the bedroom and pulls him back. Meets his eyes with her own—dark and shadowed in the dim moonlight from the old windows.

"Nick—"

"Adalind—"

She puts a hand on his chest and holds him there. Staring him down.

"I need you," she tells him, and he starts under her hand. It's not the first time she's said this to him, and it won't be the last, but it works every time. It's everything he needs to hear.

"I need you here with me, and I need you to help me raise Kelly," she says, "and I hope you're going to help me raise Diana—because Sean's an asshole, and we are so not trusting him with her education beyond school fees—and, just, the bottom line is—I don't want to do any of this without you as my partner—physically, emotionally, whatever—because you're it for me. I don't want to do this with anyone else. And I know you don't love me. I know our whole relationship is an accident or a fluke or whatever, but—"

She's spiraling, and he realizes that he missed this. The way she thinks and overthinks and panics, but only when it's safe to do so. In a crisis, she's unwavering, but in the down time—

He gets to see her like this. The woman behind the witch.

"Adalind!"

She stops speaking and blinks up at him, while he reels her into his arms and leans in to kiss her. Once, twice, three times, each longer and sweeter and—

"I'm not going anywhere," he tells her, voice low here in the tiny breathing space between their lips. "Call it an accident or fluke or fucking fate—whatever it is, I'm all yours. Come to bed, Adalind. Make me yours."

* * *

Living with Diana has its challenges. She's a fiend for the hot water in the shower, so they're going to need a bigger water heater if he's ever going to have a warm shower in the morning again. She's also a stickler for the rules, so if she's on time out, everything stops. The laundry machine freezes mid load, and the coffee maker stops dripping entirely, and the toilet bowl won't even refill for the five minutes she sits on the stairs to the roof and thinks about the consequences of her actions.

As penalties go, he'll take it over a coronary, so they make it work while Adalind shoots him a little smile and shrug over Diana's head, as if to say, "Kids, right?"

Right. Their kids are something else.

But living with Diana also has its perks. He loses his keys one morning, and while he and Adalind tear the couch apart, Diana just sits quietly at the table, humming to herself and coloring. When they finish with the couch, he turns and finds the keys right there. Hanging in the air, directly in front of his nose.

"Oh, there they are. Thanks, Diana."

She grins at him then—her mother's cat-like grin in miniature—and he knows he's really in trouble now.

And all of that is still better than living with Eve again, but Adalind takes her in and what else are they supposed to do? HW is gone, and Eve has nothing to fall back on and nowhere to go. Just him and the tunnels and the life they will never have again.

Still, cohabiting with three hexenbiests under one roof is a bit much, even for him. And sharing Diana with Renard is a constant minefield. She's a rogue agent, just like her mother, but she doesn't even know him yet, much less love him. The Captain is predictably dickish about the whole thing, but Nick and Adalind resolve to take the high road. They have to figure out how to be a family all over again, and it's going to take time and patience and a really understanding wesen family therapist.

In the meantime, he and Adalind learn to make do with quickies every chance they get, which isn't often. Moments when Diana's at Renard's, and Eve is at the shop, and Nick isn't on a case are few and far between.

Which means sometimes, if it's a slow day or the investigation isn't going anywhere anytime soon, he'll pop home for lunch and see where his luck takes him.

Sometimes he'll walk into lunchtime for everyone—and the brilliant smile Adalind sends him from the kitchen is enough to make his day while he feeds Kelly and tries to make Diana eat her carrots.

Sometimes Kelly will be napping while Diana and Eve are out of the loft, and he'll do his best to make Adalind break the hush of the place with a moan or a scream while he fucks her against the kitchen counter with one hand in her hair and one hand on her clit, dragging her closer and closer to the edge until she's pushes them both over with a gasped "I love you" that leaves them both spent and helpless in each other's arms.

And sometimes, like today, she's completely and blissfully alone, waiting for him in their bed, grinning at him with that Cheshire cat grin, wearing nothing under the sheets and looking even better for it...

When Nick gets back to the precinct, Hank just rolls his eyes and Wu snorts. Nick reaches up to adjust his collar. Sometimes she gives him a hickey, just for the fun of it.

He's a very lucky man.

* * *

Monroe's birthday retreat starts off adult and sexy and fun, and ends with even more trauma. It's almost refreshing that the crazy they have to fight this week only hates him for being a cop. The idiot didn't know he was a Grimm, which is a well timed reminder that his life was never going to be perfect, even if he never saw Adalind woge or followed the path from there to her arms.

"I'm sorry," he tells her that night, thinking of the beautiful time they'd had the night before and the nightmare they'd woken up to.

"For what?" she asks, and she sounds genuinely confused, which is nice.

"For being a trouble magnet and having enemies. For spending the day chasing Rosalee instead of loving you the way you deserve."

She rolls her eyes and stretches up to kiss his jaw. "It was a spell, Nick. We both know how that goes. Now if you knock anyone else up under a spell, we'll have to have a talk, but this? Shit just happens."

She's really the ideal partner for him, and that's what he has to remember while he sits by Eve's bedside at the hospital a week later and remembers every moment of his life with Juliette. They were good together, once. Juliette was his dream girl, and he treated her that way—always putting her on a pedestal or shielding her from his world—never letting her get to know the Grimm inside of him. The killer he was born to be.

He could love Juliette again. It would be easy, and she'd have every right to hate him for it. Because he's never let her be his partner—not in this—and he can't build a life with someone without it.

He's already built a life with Adalind. And she's not his dream girl—thank god for that—but she is the woman for him, and that's just so, so much better.

* * *

The apocalypse comes after that, and no, he's not being dramatic. He's been through the looking glass and back, and Satan is on an actual warpath, and he just looks at Monroe over an ancient text and sighs.

"Monroe—do you ever get that feeling? Like your future step-daughter might be the bride of Satan? Do you ever get that?"

"What? Nick!"

"Yeah," he says with a half-hearted chuckle. "I didn't think so."

Everything goes to hell after that, and he loses them all, one by one. Hank and Wu. Eve. Renard. Monroe and Rosalee. Adalind.

After Trubel beats the crap out of him, and his mother comes with Marie, he only has one thought. He should have told Adalind he loved her before the world started to end. He should have told her every day for the past two years. He wants the chance to tell her again and again and again—better each time—the way she deserves. And failing that, he just wants to kill the son of a bitch and get it over with.

Later, he wonders if Diana heard him. The real Diana in the true world where Zerstorer never came through, and his friends never died. Adalind is waiting for him there with open arms and no ring on her finger. It's the best gift a daughter could ever give him.

* * *

He doesn't propose immediately. He doesn't want her to think this is just how he deals with trauma and loss, and besides—the lady needs a ring.

This time he takes Rosalee and Diana, and they spend the day wandering between jewelry shops and ice cream places, reviewing the merits of every likely piece they encounter along the way.

"I like the big diamond," Diana says, holding her ice cream cone upside down because she can. Nick files that one in his memory banks to tease her future partner with years from now.

But Adalind's already had a diamond, and so has he, and look where that got them.

"No diamonds," he says, and Diana pouts. She doesn't melt his ice cream though, so he takes that as a win.

"What do we think about the sapphire?" Rosalee asks. She must have noticed the way he was looking at it back at the shop. It matches Adalind's dark blue eyes and the way they can be so mercurial at times, but still so true.

Diana shrugs, licking her upside down cone and barely paying attention now that the diamond is no longer in play. "The sapphire could work."

The sapphire it is.

* * *

When he finally does ask her, it's at the least interesting moment of their entire relationship. They're packing up the loft. Diana really needs her own bedroom these days, and so do they. Kelly's getting too old not to be scarred forever if they keep sharing sleeping quarters.

So they've sold the loft to a nice doomsday prepper, and they've put an offer on another craftsman near Rosalee and Monroe's house so that they can trade off babysitting duties and solve wesen mysteries with the least amount of inconvenience possible for the new parents of three healthy and hungry babies. And in the meantime, they're packing.

Diana's at Renard's tonight. She packed all of her toys with her mind, and he was tempted to ask her to help with the kitchen before Adalind put a stop to that. The transportation to the boxes would have been fine, but wrapping items with newspaper in mid air is a little tricky, even for Diana.

Adalind is packing up their clothes when he wanders into the bedroom with a question and promptly forgets it. She's holding a sleek grey shift dress in one hand and a big creamy sweater in the other, and he just knows then. He doesn't want to wait.

"Adalind?"

"Mmmm?"

She's not looking at him, which gives him a chance to go to the dresser and find the ring. By the time he turns around, she's moved on to his shirts, and he has to pry one out of her hands to get her attention.

"I love you," he says.

"Duh," she tells him. "We're moving in together again, again. We just paid Diana's school tuition for the year. If you didn't love me before that check was cashed, you'd be crazy."

"You make me crazy."

"You love my crazy."

"Yes," he says, reaching for the box in his back pocket and finally opening it in front of her eyes. "I do. So marry me and drive me crazy for the rest of our lives."

She laughs then, and he kisses her. He can't help it. When he finally lets her come up for air, she's grinning. She's got him, and that's all they need.

* * *

"I think—maybe—"

"Maybe?"

Adalind takes a deep breath and rests her hands flat on the new kitchen's island counter like she's centering herself and drawing strength from the wood beneath her fingers. His ring hits the light just right like that, and it glows on her finger.

"I want to go back to work," she says, and he feels a little twinge of worry settle in his stomach.

"Yeah?" If he swallows too much, too fast, she doesn't mention it, which is kind.

"I mean I had to give it up, when—you know—I had to go with Sean, and then it just made sense to stay home when we got back. We had so much going on with Diana and Kelly and Eve. But things are calming down now. I think Trubel's got a place for Eve to go, and Diana's new school is going really well, and Kelly should probably start preschool sooner rather than later. He's going to be a total social butterfly, I just know it. And, well—I want to go back to work."

Nick nods through all of this. It makes sense. She's a great mom, and she's a lawyer. He can support her in both.

"Okay," he says. "Where were you thinking?"

"The firm offered me a partnership," she tells him with a shrug. "I think they know I come with a Grimm attached. The offer was very nice."

"Is that what you want?"

She's already shaking her head, and he can't help but smile with relief. He's not sure he could stand sharing her with Evil, Inc. again.

"I went to the Legal Aid Bureau yesterday. They're working with a lot of underserved wesen and kehrseite who need legal assistance. They're not homicide victims, and they don't need a Grimm, necessarily, but I could help. As a lawyer and a hexenbiest—I could help."

He's grinning when he reaches for her, pulling her in close with a kiss. "They are going to be so lucky to have you. That's amazing, Adalind."

"You don't mind?" she asks, looking up at him with a little smirk. "If I make no money for a bit and just figure out how my powers and my skills can work together if no one's trying to direct them towards good or evil or, you know, parenthood, for a while?"

"I don't mind at all," he tells her, kissing her nose because he can. "Do you mind if I never rise above the rank of Detective and just focus on keeping Portland fair and safe for everyone, even murderers, for the rest of my life?"

"There was another option?"

She's grinning now—teasing him—and he just holds her tight and loves her with everything he has.

* * *

In the end, it's a small ceremony. Just their closest friends and the kids. Eve was the only one to decline the invitation, and they'd all decided it was best to let sleeping hexenbiests lie. She's earned a little peace of mind. They all have.

Monroe gives the toast:

"I'll admit, I was a bit apprehensive about where to begin my best man speech. I've known Nick almost since the day he got his Grimm powers, so imagine my surprise when he reminded me that Adalind had me beat that day by less than twelve hours. And boy, did she ever make an impression.

"I would be lying if I said we all knew these two were meant to be from the start. But, good and bad, Nick and Adalind have always had a connection. There's a spark between you two that's rare and precious, and you've been lucky enough to have the chance to nurture it and become true partners and wonderful parents to Kelly and Diana. I think I can speak for everyone here when I say we're lucky to have you both in our lives, and we're grateful to be a part of your family."

It's a good toast, and after the wedding, nothing changes. They still have kids to raise and jobs to do, so they just get on with loving each other every chance they get. It's more than enough for them.

* * *

_Three Years Later_

"Da-ad," Kelly whines, "she did it on purpose!"

Nick follows the line of Kelly's little, accusatory finger to find Diana frozen on top of the coffee table with one of Kelly's Transformers smashed at her feet and another one floating high in the air beyond even his reach.

In fairness, the evidence is pretty damning. She probably did do it on purpose.

"Kelly, what did you do to your sister?"

"Me?" Kelly's six year old face is the picture of innocence. He's raising a little criminal, and that would be more of a worry if he also wasn't terribly cute.

"Yes, you. Diana has impulse control you can only dream of—so what did you do, kid?

Kelly blushes and looks down to his feet. Mumbles something into his chest.

"I didn't catch that. For the court record, if you please."

"I told her crush on the bus that she has to wear bras now, and she, like, flipped out for no reason."

"Un huh." Nick would be more hung up on the crush part if Diana hadn't just blushed scarlet and turned nearly invisible. If he squints, he can make out the outline of her body where she's bending the light around her physical shape. That's a new one.

"Kelly, apologize to your sister. You don't get to make her feel uncomfortable about her body or her crushes, and you don't get to tell her secrets to the world on the school bus. Are we clear?"

"Yes, Dad. Sorry, Di."

Diana doesn't stop hiding, and Nick doesn't blame her. He sends Kelly to the kitchen. "Tell your mother you're in trouble, and I said you needed to eat a lot of veggies tonight to make up for it. Go on."

With Kelly out of the room, the edges of Diana become a little sharper. He can tell where she is now—hiding in the couch cushions, curled up with a pillow in the fetal position.

He moves over to sit on the coffee table in front of her and reaches out to stroke her hair. "I'm sorry, kid. He's an idiot, but he does love you, and I bet he was just a little jealous that his big sister was paying attention to someone else."

"That doesn't make it okay."

"No it doesn't. How can I help, Diana? Do you want me to get your mom?"

"No," she says softly, leaning a little into the hand stroking her hair. "This is nice. Thanks, Nick."

"Anytime," he promises, and then he just sits with her and pets her hair until the invisibility passes and she's back—whole and safe and sound. Right where she should be.

After the fight and a snack and brief truce followed by a dastardly betrayal when Diana steals one of Kelly's cookies, the kids finally fall asleep in front of the TV. He stands in the doorway with Adalind pressed to his front, one arm around her waist, while they watch Diana and Kelly sleep curled together on the couch.

"Look at them. They're so cute," Adalind says. "We should have another one."

"What?" He starts against her, his loose grip clenching at her hip for balance. "Are you crazy? We have a teenager and six year old—we do not need another baby."

Adalind isn't listening. She's plotting.

"Maybe we'll get another witchy one this time."

"I don't know if we can survive another witchy one, Adalind."

Adalind snorts. "Scared? You'll have Kelly for back up. Maybe she won't even be able to levitate things in her crib."

"Oh that's reassuring. Wait—she?"

"Yes," Adalind says softly, leaning back against him as he relaxes into her on reflex, just like he always does. "A little black haired girl with blue eyes, and her Aunty Trubel's taste in clothes. I can see her, I think. But I don't think that's my power. I want to meet her."

"Oh. Okay, maybe—"

"And anyway, I just feel like we should at least plan one kid. Although in my defense, Diana was at least half-planned…"

"Adalind…"

"Yeah, no, that doesn't count."

"It really doesn't. I wish…I wish we had started less..."

"Violently?"

"Yeah. I wish the first time we kissed hadn't been so...destructive."

Adalind nods, absorbing this information. She turns and leans forward then, resting her palms against his chest while his hands move to her back automatically, following the same path every day, every time they reach for each other.

"The first time we kissed, I lost everything," she tells him. "I lost my powers, and then I lost my mother and Sean and...I grew up then. It made me start over. And when we kissed for the first time at our dining table in the loft, it felt like we were making something new together. A family. It felt like home."

"Yeah. It felt like forever," he tells her, "and I was scared to start."

"Me, too."

"I'm not scared anymore."

She bites her lip, and then she grins—that joyous, possessive grin that hits him in the gut every time.

"Wanna to make a baby with me, Nick? On purpose this time?"

"Yes," he says. It's inevitable really. He plans to give her everything she wants for the rest of their lives. "I love you, and I want you. I want Kelly and Diana. And yes, I want another baby with you. On purpose."


End file.
